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Eddie Van Blundht
Eddie Van Blundht is a man born with a strange genetic mutation which resulted in an abnormal anatomy and the ability to alter his physical appearance. Due to this anomaly, he was also born with a vestigial tail, but had it surgically removed. Biography Van Blundht was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia. His father was a circus performer known as "Eddie the Monkey Man" due to his vestigial tail, a genetic feature inherited by Van Blundht although he opted to have it surgically removed. For most of his life, Van Blundht considered himself a "loser". While he did date his high school crush, Amanda Nelligan - as they were bonded by their mutual love for Star Wars - she eventually rejected him and came to regret having dated him, as she came to regard Van Blundht as weird and annoying. Later on, Van Blundht would be employed as a janitor in a fertility clinic owned by Dr. Alton Pugh. Unknown to most people, Van Blundht possessed the ability to alter his own appearance and thus pass off as another person. After his father died (of natural causes), Van Blundht hid his body in the attic and used his ability to impersonate him, creating the appearance that he was still alive and being able to keep on collecting his old age pension. In 1997, Dr. Pugh developed an experimental technique to help women who wanted children but whose husbands were infertile. He believed the treatment was working, as four of the subjects eventually managed to have children. However, all babies were born with a vestigial tail, indicating that something was wrong. When a fifth woman - Amanda Nelligan, who was single and had never undergone Dr. Pugh's treatment - also gave birth to a tailed baby and claimed the father was a man from outer space, the case drew the attention of FBI agent Fox Mulder, who went to investigate along with his usual partner Dana Scully. As it turns out, Nelligan claimed that this man from space was not an alien but rather Luke Skywalker, the Jedi knight from Star Wars. Still, the birth of five babies with the exact same genetic anomaly in the same town over the course of three months demanded an investigation. It turned out that Dr. Pugh's treatment never worked at all and it was Van Blundht who was using his abilities to impregnate the women by assuming the form of their husbands, or, in Nelligan's case, Luke Skywalker. The body of Eddie Sr. was also found, although the analysis ultimately concluded that he had died of natural causes. While he tried to derail the investigation by impersonating several people, including his father, the local deputy and Mulder himself; Van Blundht was eventually captured and imprisoned. Thanks to Mulder's advice he was regularly given a kind of muscle relaxant to inhibit his shapeshifting abilities. He was also assigned a therapist to deal with his self-esteem issues. Biology The autopsy of his father's body revealed several peculiarities which Eddie Jr. shared, including mutations in the skeletal muscular tissue and hair follicles. Most notably, he possesses 655 muscles in his body when most human beings only have 654. The extra one is actually a thin layer of stratified muscle tissue growing underneath his entire skin, which allows him to change his appearance at will. Appearances *''The X-Files'', s04e20 - "Small Potatoes" (1997) Notes *The extent of Van Blundht's shapeshifting abilities isn't made clear. It's not known, for instance, if he would be able to assume a female appearance, or change his ethnicity, or even assume a non-human form. It's extremely unlikely that he could become a non-humanoid, however. *He becomes quickly annoyed whenever someone spells his name without the "h". Conversely, he also dislikes when they assume the "h" is to be pronounced when it is in fact silent. Category:Fictional Creatures Category:X-Files Universe Category:Living Characters Category:Mutants Category:Shapeshifting Creatures Category:Males Category:Creatures Created by Vince Gilligan Category:Characters Portrayed by Darin Morgan Category:Characters Debuting in 1997 Category:Live Action Creatures Category:Janitors Category:TV Show Creatures Category:American Characters